Converging Elements
by Lachriel
Summary: Harry is entering his sixth year at Hogwarts. Who knows what he will learn, or if he will survive the year. Then of course there's the whole 'learning forbiddenoutlawed magic' thingy going on. There will be OotP spoilers.


AN: A quick note here. This is not meant to be a Mary-Sue, though I'm afraid that in this first chapter that's a little difficult to tell. See, while my sparkly little OC is an important character to this plot, she is not the main character. In fact, you probably won't see her again for another couple chapters. If this fic turns really and truly Sue-ish, I will kill it with my bare hands. That is all you need know.  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or the reality in which it is set. The OC is mine. I'd like to claim 'shadow-walking' as well, but I'm afraid that it's an idea that pops up all over the place. So I really couldn't do that any more than I could claim banana pudding. Someone came up with it, but no one really knows who. They just know it wasn't me.  
  
A pair of shadows on the wall. Only that, but they seemed out of place. Only shadows, but not cast by the moonlight that flooded through the window. They drifted through the front room, up the stairs, down the hall, and into the smallest bedroom of number four Privet Drive. There the shadows paused a second before stepping into the shaft of moonlight from the small window and taking on the form of solid beings.  
  
Hedwig shifted on her perch, observing the figures and dismissing them as unimportant. Unimportant may not have been the best way to describe those two, and certainly not their presence here, but they were no threat to the thin boy whose messy black hair poked out over the edge of the blankets.  
  
The taller figure glanced toward the smaller, who was holding her head between her hands and repeatedly muttering something that sounded like "hate shadow-walking." She finally shook herself and straightened.  
  
"Now then, Albus. What was so important that we needed to travel in the middle of the night, when we should be preparing for the approaching storm, by that method of transportation when you know how it affects me? Or perhaps you simply find it ammusing to make me dizzy and disoriented when I work so hard to present a calmly collected image to the rest of the world? You would."  
  
"Not at all," he replied with a twinkle in his eye. "You demanded to see him, quite emphatically I might add, and so I have brought you here to do exactly that."  
  
"Very well. Where is he?" Dumbledore nodded toward the sleeping form nearby. "H-him? But, Albus! He's a child! He can't be older than twelve!"  
  
"He will be sixteen tomorrow."  
  
"Sixteen. Albus, he couldn't possibly."  
  
"Read him."  
  
"Pardon?"  
  
"Read him."  
  
"But. Oh, fine." She decided it would be quicker to do what he asked rather than argue. The girl stared intently at the sleeping Harry Potter, color draining from her eyes until only white was showing. "There's practically nothing there," she snorted derisively. "Not even enough of an aura to tell which he is."  
  
"Now read me. For comparison," he added when she began to object. She turned her eyes toward him with a sigh, but after a moment of searching they widened in horrified shock and snapped back to normal.  
  
"You. you're. burnt out!" She sat rather heavily on the little desk chair. "When? How did this happen, Albus?"  
  
"Read yourself." She did, too shocked to argue at all.  
  
"What?" Confusion and panic were clear in her single word.  
  
"A shield. That is why you can read neither my aura, nor your own. It was the strongest shielding spell I could find and still cannot entirely mask the young Mr. Potter's aura."  
  
"But. that means he is more powerful than either of us!"  
  
"No. Both of us. Combined."  
  
"Both?" The girl blinked in surprise, though she had thought she could not be any more shocked than when she had tried to read her own aura and found nothing there. "Even with the exponential increase caused by linking?" Dumbledore nodded solemnly. "But how is such power possible? If he were decades older it would still be unbelievable."  
  
"Do your remember your elemental theory class for your school days?"  
  
"With Professor Ogden?" I, well. it would, uh. depend which, um, part.." she trailed off, clearly embarrassed.  
  
Dumbledore chuckled. "Yes, she did always do her part in making sure the students were well rested. Do you recall her own personal theories concerning a child of strong, but untapped opposites?"  
  
"Yes, of course. That was on of the interesting lessons, though her ideas were completely unsupported. She though that. oh. She was right, wasn't she?"  
  
"Yes. They attended Hogwrts after the ban on teaching elemental magic. Both were extremely powerful though they were young and, obviously, untrained. Both were of secondary elements, and both were exactly balanced. James Potter was air-fire, Lily Evans was earth-water. The result. Harry James Potter, spirit, and so strong as to rival any recorded elemental mage."  
  
"And his powers have been growing unchecked and untapped for sixteen years. How am I to train this boy if it is forbidden? No doubt you have a plan."  
  
"No doubt."  
  
"And I'm fairly certain that I won't like it, judging by that infuriatingly obnoxious twinkle in your eyes."  
  
"Of course."  
  
"Well? Are you going to enlighten me?"  
  
"You will be attending Hogwarts."  
  
"I'd gathered as much. Will I be teaching a class to help me blend in? I hope you don't want me to teach Defense. I've never been much good at it, and with all the stories I've heard of the past few years I'm beginning to thing that position really is jinxed like the rumors are saying."  
  
"I think you misunderstand me. You will be attending as a student."  
  
"A-as a student? You can't possibly be serious, Albus!" Her voice was unsteady and frightened.  
  
"Come now, it is the obvious solutions considering your appearance. Certainly your school days can't have been as terrible as all that."  
  
"Of course they could have! Why else would I have worked so hard, even during the summers? Everyone thought I was a brilliant, motivated child, taking such a heavy load and all those advanced classes. I just wanted out! That's the only reason I managed to graduate a whole year early."  
  
"Yes, only the fourth student ever to do so."  
  
"Yes. I don't know if I can go back to that."  
  
"You can, first and foremost because it must be done. But it will not be so difficult as you imagine. The classes have changed, the teachers have changed, but more importantly, the students have changed. You have changed as well. You may look seventeen, but you are much more confident and self- assured than you were at that age."  
  
"I suppose so," she said quietly.  
  
"Speaking of which, did they ever discover why that happened?" Dumbledore asked to change the subject. She nodded.  
  
"A genetic defect. You always did say Muggles should get more respect for their science, and that we should learn more about them. I guess you were right. We should have studied the relationships between magic and science. It. it's a very rare condition that I have, a recessive trait that tends to skip several generations at a shot. The first time I used a massive amount of elemental magic it triggered something of a 'wild card' effect. In my case it made me, um. sparkly? Yes, that's a good word. And it made my magic flashy. I stopped aging physically and stopped getting stronger magically." She paused, thinking, then spoke with concern in her voice. "Do you think it will happen to him?"  
  
"Perhaps. I do not know."  
  
"I never though I'd her you say that." She sounded almost amused, but not quite. "If he knows of the possibility. will it effect his actions?"  
  
"No. I do not believe it would. Mr. Potter tends to do what must be done despite the consequences. or the rules." Dumbledore smiled lightly. The girl nodded in satisfaction or approval, it was difficult to tell which.  
  
"Then maybe the future is not so dark as it seems."  
  
"Ah, the voice of continual optimism."  
  
"I do try," she stated dryly. "Even though I do look seventeen, I would hardly 'blend in' with the other students."  
  
"Surely there are methods of making yourself look less, as you say, 'sparkly?'"  
  
"Well." Her eyes brightened in growing excitement. "I suppose I could dye my hair. I've been meaning to try that for a while now. I could change my makeup too. I'd have to tone down the glitter - that's a Muggle cosmetic I've become quite fond of." She glanced up when she heard Dumbledore chuckling.. "All right. So I'm looking forward to it now. Don't rub it in. Will I be re-sorted?"  
  
"Yes, to help you blend in."  
  
"Will I be sorted back into Ravenclaw?"  
  
"Perhaps."  
  
"So I could end up in a different house?" The idea was intriguing.  
  
"It is a possibility, but we have no previous evidence on which to base a theory. Your case is quite unique."  
  
"Yes, I suppose it is."  
  
"We should leave before Mr. Potter wakes up." The girl nodded and stood. She hesitated a moment before leaning down to place a kiss on Harry's forehead next to his scar. Flecks of silver light lingered where her lips had touched before fading into his skin.  
  
"Sleep well, Harry James Potter, for many trials await you in this, your sixteenth year. It may be that this small protection spell will aid you in the dark days ahead." She stood beside Dumbledore, staring meditatively at the boy on who rested the fates of so many. "Could we at least Apparate back?" she asked abruptly.  
  
Dumbledore shook his head with a merry look. "As part of the shielding I blocked all Apparating into and Disapparating from this house." She sighed in resignation and the two of them stepped from the moonlight, becoming only shadows once more.  
  
A few hours later the sun rose over Privet Drive, waking a boy with messy black hair and bright green eyes. He sat up and looked around. Glancing into a mirror he touched his forehead lightly, not on the lightning bolt shaped scar, but just beside it where his skin felt a little bit cooler.  
  
"I had the strangest dream, Hedwig," he told his snowy white owl before changing and going downstairs to make breakfast. 


End file.
